As the World Wide Web has matured, the number of websites hosting email, banking, ecommerce, and social networking services, as well as the number of users accessing these services, has increased. Users may be accustomed to providing these legitimate websites with confidential and/or personal information. Consequently, malicious websites posing as legitimate websites may pose a serious security threat. For example, malicious websites may be used to steal confidential information (e.g., user credentials or credit card numbers) as part of a phishing attack or may exploit vulnerabilities in web browser software that may allow malware to be downloaded to a user's computer. Furthermore, some legitimate websites (through the use of spam, comment posts, etc.) may be used to redirect users to malicious websites.
Malicious website detection may help to reduce the risk that a user will fall victim to these threats by providing a warning before the user visits a malicious website. To detect a malicious website, a typical detection system may analyze each web page contained within the malicious website. A detection system may also need to revisit many websites that are dynamic and continuously change. Similarly, malicious websites may evolve in an attempt to avoid detection. Thus, a detection system may need to continually analyze significant numbers of websites to detect any malicious websites that may be a threat to users. Unfortunately, analyzing large numbers of websites may be cost and time prohibitive. Accordingly, the instant disclosure addresses a need for systems and methods that provide malicious website detection in a more effective and efficient manner.